Bula Devi reports from New Delhi
New Delhi Oct21:- In a major breakthrough, India and China have reached an agreement on the patrolling arrangement on the Line of Actual control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, which essentially means disengagement of troops in some friction areas.
Indian and Chinese troops have been in a border stand-off in the region since mid-2020, coming to a head in June 2020 when the two sides clashed violently in the Galwan valley leading to the death of 20 Indian armymen and an unaccounted number on the Chinese side.
Making the announcement at a special briefing on Monday ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Kazan in Russia for the 16th BRICS Summit, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the agreement was the result of multiple rounds of discussions between the two sides.
“We have been in discussions with the Chinese interlocutors through the WMCC (Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China border affairs) and at the military level as well through meetings of the military commanders at various levels. These discussions in the past have resulted in the resolution of stand offs at various locations. …there were also few locations where the stand-off had not been resolved.
“Now, as a result of the discussions that have taken place in the past several weeks, an agreement has been arrived at on patrolling arrangement along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas and this is leading to disengagement and eventually a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020,” said the Foreign Secretary.
Speaking at a private event later in the day, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said Indian and Chinese soldiers will be able to resume patrolling in the way they had been doing before the border face-off began in May 2020.
“We have reached an agreement on patrolling and we have gone back to the 2020 position. With that we can say the disengagement with China has been completed. Details will come out in due course,” Jaishankar said in his first comments on the agreement.
“There are areas which for various reasons after 2020, they blocked us, we blocked them. We have now reached an understanding which will allow patrolling as we had been doing till 2020,” Jaishankar said.
According to some Indian news reports, the agreement pertains to patrolling in Depsang and Demchok areas.
There was, however, no immediate announcement from the Chinese side about the agreement.
When the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian was asked at the regular press conference on Monday whether Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, he said: “We will keep you posted if anything comes up.”
On September 12, following the meeting between India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the BRICS NSA meeting in St Peterburg, Russia, the MEA said, “Both sides agreed to work with urgency and redouble their efforts to realise complete disengagement in the remaining areas. NSA conveyed that peace and tranquility in border areas and respect for LAC are essential for normalcy in bilateral relations. Both sides must fully abide by relevant bilateral agreements, protocols, and understandings reached in the past by the two Governments. The two sides agreed that the India-China bilateral relationship is significant not just for the two countries but also for the region and the world.”
After the last WMCC meeting in August, it was said that the two sides had a “frank, constructive and forward looking” views on the situation in the LAC to narrow down differences.
